Monsters
by lionesseyes13
Summary: Monsters are made, not born. This is a collection of snippets that come together to form Barty Crouch Jr.'s life story. Rated T for safety.


Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I don't claim to, so don't send me to Azkaban.

Monsters

**Delivery**: Although Bartemius Crouch Jr. didn't remember being born in St. Mungo's hospital like any other British wizard the circumstances surrounding his birth had an indelible impact on his life. After all, they foreshadowed his whole relationship with his father. That is, his father had been too busy negotiating with German wizards to bother attending to his wife while she was delivering their baby, and, when he finally visited her hours later, he only offered a dissatisfied grunt at the crimson baby wrapped in the soft blue blanket the hospital had provided.

**Naming**: Even as a child, Barty knew that his parents had named him after his father, and, even at a young age, he couldn't help but resent them for doing so. After all, it was as though by naming him after his father they were denying him the right to forge his own identity.

**Admiration**: When Barty was a little boy, his mother told him that his father was a very important man at the Ministry of Magic. Upon hearing this, Barty decided that it didn't matter if his parents had deprived him of an opportunity to define his own identity, because he wanted to be just like his father.

**Busy**: Unfortunately, Barty soon discovered that his father was too busy to spend any time with him at all. Not only did Mr. Crouch refuse to play games with him or read him bedtime stories, but the man also insisted that Barty not watch him write important letters in his office, which he spent most of his time at home locked in. Barty's father didn't care how much he wanted to learn how to work for the Ministry. All that mattered to Barty's father was that the important business was taken care of, and raising his son was never a high priority on Mr. Crouch's list. Thus, in the end, the greatest tips that Barty learned from his father were how to be busy all the time and that home was merely an extension of the working world.

**Indulgence**: Perhaps to compensate for his father's coldness, Barty's mother and the family house elf, Winky, indulged his every whim. They bought all the toys he begged for, let him wear whatever clothes he wished, and permitted him to eat whatever he wanted whenever he chose. Somehow, though, while Barty loved the treatment, he never loved his mother or Winky, because he wasn't interested in their love. He was only intrigued by the love that had been denied him—his father's love.

**Spoiled**: In the end, he even came to hate his mother and Winky since their doting resulted in another wedge being driven between him and his father. On the rare occasions that Mr. Crouch joined his spouse and child for supper, he glowered and declared that his son was becoming a spoiled brat who would be an embarrassment to the family when he saw Barty push away his vegetable casserole and order Winky to make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

**Reputation**: Mr. Crouch was finally goaded into action two years later when Barty was seven. It was during the annual ball that the Crouch family hosted at their manor two nights before Christmas when Barty refused to go to bed after being paraded around in his fanciest robes that Mr. Crouch finally remembered that he was a father. After all, nothing must ever jeopardize his reputation, and in order to maintain his good name Crouch would do anything, even pretend to be a father.

**Nice**: Oh, his father had seemed nice enough in front of the guests when he carried Barty upstairs to bed. However, he was far less kind the next morning when he screamed that he would not allow his son to disgrace him with his defiance. Certainly, there had been nothing nice in his twisted expression when he yanked Barty over his knee and hit him for what felt like hours. It was then, as his father's hand beat inexorably against his flaming bare backside that Barty knew that his father was nothing more than a brute and that no matter how nice a façade their family constructed, they would still be rotten on the inside where it counted.

**Promise**: When his father smacked him, Barty had sworn to himself that he wouldn't be a brute like his father. Yet, he couldn't prevent himself from slapping Winky when she didn't obey him fast enough. It didn't matter that he had promised himself that he wouldn't act like his father, because, in the final analysis, he was as much of a liar as his father, and, once he had seen savagery, he was inexplicably drawn to it against his will.

**Happy**: Barty had been happy when he was five, and he had performed his first bit of accidental magic. He was happy when he could control his magic enough to burn his father's scrolls under the guise of uncontrollable magic, because, even though his father spanked him for destroying important records, Barty knew that his punishment would have been much more severe if his father ever knew the truth. However, nothing compared to his elation when he learned he would be going to Hogwarts, where he would learn to control his powers further and where he would be away from his father.

**Awe**: Even though his mother had described Hogwarts to him a million times, the reality of it put her descriptions to shame. When Barty glimpsed the windows gleaming in the castle's many turrets and towers from the enchanted rowboats sailing across the lake, he had felt his eyes widen until they were approximately the diameter of Galleons. Yet, even that sense of wonder had paled when juxtaposed with the amazement he felt when he entered the Great Hall and saw a ceiling that managed to mimic the nighttime sky perfectly. At that point, he had thought that nothing could surprise him more, but that was when he had met a talking hat that had caused his breath to snag in his throat.

**Home**: When Barty was Sorted, the Hat had whispered to him that he was ambitious, cunning, and dominated by a thirst for vengeance, so he would be at home in Slytherin. It wasn't long before the Hat was proven correct when Barty found himself accepted with open arms by a large group of Slytherins from backgrounds as old as his own. It was then that he discovered that it was possible to create a new family for yourself if the one you had been given failed to meet your expectations.

**Clever**: Barty soon discovered that he was brighter by far than most of his peers. He understood magical theory faster than most of them, and he was always among the first of his classmates to master a new spell.

**Quiet**: All of Barty's professors perceived him as a quiet, respectful boy. None of them ever suspected that his reserved nature and good manners concealed a monster as brutal as the one his father kept buried. Over the years, he became a favorite of many professors like Professor Slughorn, and they all assured him that he would achieve greatness just like his father had.

**Greatness**: The professors were right, for Barty received consistently high marks on his exams, received twelve perfect O.W.L's, and, in the end, managed a perfect score on his N.E.W.T's, as well. Everyone agreed that Barty would have as successful a career at the Ministry as his father before him.

**Disappointment**: Everyone except Barty's father, that is. His excellent marks notwithstanding, Barty was a disappointment to his father, who was incensed at his son for being Sorted into Slytherin. As a man who had gained power by taking a harsh stance against Dark wizards, Mr. Crouch couldn't tolerate his son associating him with the House that had produced more Dark wizards than any other.

**Darkness**: Barty never understood what it was precisely that attracted him to the Dark Arts in the first place. Perhaps it had merely been a curious desire to see what the opposite of light magic truly entailed, or maybe it had been nothing more than a need to fit in with the other Slytherins. For whatever reason, though, after his first taste of Dark magic in the third year dormitories, he was addicted to it. He craved the thrill that having power over others afforded him. He needed the adrenaline rush that filled him when he tortured others just as he thrived in the blackness that swallowed him when others inflicted pain on him.

**Graduation**: Graduation from Hogwarts meant a job at the Ministry, and, more importantly to Barty, a searing initiation ceremony into the Death Eaters, a group that could offer him the father he had always longed for in the Dark Lord and could provide him with more opportunities to satisfy his savage impulses.

**Downfall**: Behind his mask, Barty administered death and torture to countless Muggles, Mudbloods, and vermin who dared to challenge the Dark Lord's supremacy. With his talent and cleverness, he found himself advancing rapidly in the ranks of Death Eaters. Yet, although he dished out death on a regular basis, he was outraged when the Dark Lord met his downfall on Halloween night in 1981.

**Mad**: The Dark Lord's downfall drove him mad, and, though Barty knew that he could have lived his whole life without anyone suspecting that he was a Death Eater given his youth and his father's status, he would not allow himself to cower in the background when he might have the power to restore the Dark Lord. For that reason, he joined the Lestranges in torturing the Longbottoms for information about the Dark Lord's whereabouts. That was why, even when it became obvious that the Longbottoms had no information to furnish, he continued to inflict the Cruciatus Curse upon them. After all, if the Dark Lord's downfall had driven him mad, then it was only just that the Longbottoms be driven insane, as well.

**Hysteria**: When Barty was arrested along with the Lestranges and dragged to Azkaban to await the trial, he was hysterical for the first time in his life. The narrow cell made him claustrophobic. The cold stones and the chill the dementors emitted made him shiver. His mind tormented him with all of his worst and most painful memories, and, since his wand had been taken from him, he couldn't produce a Patronus to defend himself. All he could do was cry until there were no tears left in him, scream until his throat was raw, and vomit all over the stone floor.

**Justice**: Although the trial that his father gave him and the Lestranges was meant to provide the illusion that justice had been meted out, Barty knew that what went on in that courtroom wasn't justice. He was aware that he and the Lestranges were guilty of torturing the Longbottoms into insanity, but he also knew that no father should have been able to ignore his son's appeals for mercy the way that his had done. As he was dragged, shrieking for pity from the father who had denied him every form of affection, Barty thought that while many people might have perceived him as a monster, they should know that he hadn't been born one—he had been made into one, and it was his father who had made him one. If his father had paid him any attention at all, Barty would never have turned to the Dark Lord for a father. His father deserved Azakaban as much as he did. His only comfort was that his father's reputation would be destroyed by the scandal that would result one everyone knew that Barty had been a Death Eater.

**Salvation**: Barty expected that he would be imprisoned in Azkaban for the rest of his life, which would be greatly shortened by the effects of the dementors. He thought that he would die wailing over all the horrible memories the dementors forced him to relive. Luckily, he was wrong about this. When it seemed as though Barty were on the cusp of death, his mother and father were allowed a deathbed visit, and his mother, who was dying anyway, had her body switched with his, so that he could escape from Azkaban.

**Control**: His father controlled his son with the Imperius Curse, and Barty lacked the desire to rebel against him until he received a message that the Dark Lord was alive and wanted him to perform a service for him at Hogwarts.

**Honor**: Barty had been honored to accept the assignment, knowing that he would be honored beyond any of the Dark Lord's followers if he did, and nothing pleased him more than the prospect of making the man he regarded as a father proud, and nothing would make him happier than to have the Dark Lord himself announce that Barty was like a son to him. For that honor, Barty would have led a dozen Potters into the Dark Lord's clutches.

**Deception**: As he moved around Hogwarts easily disguised as Mad-Eye Moody, Barty often thought how easy it was to deceive innocent, admiring students like Potter, Weasley, Granger, and Diggory. Even Dumbledore, for all his skill as a Legilimens, was easy to manipulate. All of them were blinded by morality and only saw what they wished to see, and none of them wished to see a Death Eater pretending to be a former Auror and a professor.

**Shocked**: Barty was shocked when the Dark Lord failed to kill Potter, but that was nothing to how he felt when Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall stopped him just before he could cast the Killing Curse on Potter to fulfill the task that the Dark Lord had not managed to accomplish.

**Empty**: Barty felt empty as Dumbledore ordered Snape to fetch the Vertiaserum, and he felt even hollower when he answered all the man's questions. He felt nothing when Winky sobbed over him. It was only when the dementors swooped upon him when Fudge entered the office that he felt anything, and then it was too late. The dementors ate his fear, gobbled up every good memory of his, and then devoured even the bad ones as well, so that he was nothing more than a soulless shell. As his soul trickled out of him into the dementors, Barty knew that he had made the mistake of seeking love in all the wrong places and ignoring the love of beings like his mother and Winky. Maybe he had been soulless long before he encountered dementors, and maybe hatred had destroyed him long before the dementors ever could.


End file.
